Studying With Felda Malaysia, Bank Tanah Wants To Strengthen The Effectiveness Of Agrarian Reform

Head of the Land Bank Agency Parman Natamatmadja. Photo: Theresia Agatha/VOI

JAKARTA - The Land Bank Agency is studying with the Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) or the Land Progress Institute of the Malaysian Alliance to strengthen the effectiveness of its main task of carrying out agrarian reforms.

Felda is considered a land management agency capable of handling the arrangement of underdeveloped rural areas into a new development area with a land management area of 400,000 hectares (ha).

"We, the Land Bank Agency, are to create land availability in the context of a just economy or improve people's welfare for various purposes," said Head of the Land Bank Agency Parman Natamatmadja in the FGD for the Development of the Agrarian Reform Program of the Land Bank at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Jakarta, Thursday, October 24.

The mandate of agrarian reform of the Land Bank Agency itself is contained in Government Regulation (PP) Number 64 of 2001. In Article 2 of PP it is stated that Land Bank is given special authority to ensure land availability in the context of a fair economy, one of which is for agrarian reform.

Agrarian reform is a national strategic program that plays a role in equitable distribution of the structure of mastery, ownership, use and use of land and resolution of agrarian conflicts to create a just economy.

With this mandate, the Land Bank Agency is obliged to provide at least 30 percent of the land for agrarian reforms of the total area. Not only in the form of providing and distributing land, but also requiring land assets owned by the people to have economic value that drives people's income through empowerment and also the use of technology.

Until now, the Land Bank Agency only has three land locations provided for agrarian reform, namely Penajam Paser Utara (PPU) covering an area of 1,883 Ha, Poso covering an area of 1,550 Ha and Cianjur covering an area of 203 Ha.

"The implementation of the nearest agrarian reform is the PPU (North Penajam Paser) which is located close to IKN," he said.

Parman said, to emphasize the agrarian reform program, his party is currently studying with Felda to study the best formulation in the development of optimally implemented agrarian reforms.

"To help us in formulating the best formula for the development of agrarian reforms of the Land Bank Agency in achieving the goals of the agrarian reform program itself," he said.

He added that Felda is known to be the largest plantation manager in the world, with a total of 811,140 ha of palm oil plants, especially on the Peninsula of Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak. Felda also manages oil palm plantations and processing in Indonesia.

"Later there will be a cooperation with Felda to make what Felda has done successful, by now managing 400,000 ha and that has been a success," he added.